"What have been your relations with Gen. Wang Huai-ching?" "Tu my early days as am officer, he was my direct superior." The general then recalled a thrilling episode of his life which he had told me at Changteh. At the time of the Revolution he was a major, stationed at Shanhaikuan. He became involved with two majors stationed at Mukden im a somewhat too previous welcome to the Revolution. Correspondence between the two Mukden majors was opened and led to their execution. No letters of Major Feng were forthcoming or he too would have been shot. But his name was mentioned in the incriminate ing letters and this led to his degradation and dismissal. Gen. Wang was the commanding officer who dealt with this matter. He was not home long before his rank was restored to him and he was hidden enlist his own battalion. It is interesting to note that from that time to now he has never succeeded another officer..in command of a previously existing unit. When he was raised from major to colonel, he was told to enlist new battalions to form his iment; as brigade-general he enlisted new regiments to form his brigade; as a divisional general, he enlisted new brigades to form his division; and he has now added mixed brigade after mixed brigade to form his present army. There is, I believe, no exact parallel to this in the Chinese forces.
But to return to Gen. Feng's relations to Gen. Wang, I have -heard it said that "in China' it is obligatory on Gen. Feng to take care not to offend Gen. Wang. Why "in China?' Snore ly in amy land, a man who was at one time a major acting under the immediate control of a general and who rises to become the equal in rank of his quondam superior, always has an attitude of courtesy to his senior in years, that he does not show to those who have risen step by step with him. Gen. Wang Huai-ching is in charge of the forces inside the city of Peking (except that Gen. Feng has four battalions of his own men at his Peking quarters—these have nothing to do with any matters outside those quarters), and the forces at Hsiyuan and Peiyuan. Gen. Feng has no: authority at all over Gen, Wang's forces, and, therefore, no responsibility for their, actions. When Gen. Wang saw fit to hire men to parade the Peking street with banners inscribed with Chu. Li".—a sort of Bottomly headline, "Li must go'—Gen. Feng was confronted: with a very delicate situation. When I asked him what connexion he had with this demonstration, he assured me that he had nothing to do with
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.